Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives

Eschatology

Salvation of the Infidel

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

New Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 502-504

The problem of how persons outside Judeo-Christianity can be saved has troubled
theologians for centuries, and the final solution is still a matter of speculation.
Certainly God wills all men to reach their heavenly destiny. But where do those
who have traditionally been called *infidels obtain the *faith that St. Paul
says is necessary to please God, and how can they be saved outside the Church,
which is the only ark of salvation? (Cf Denz 870.) These are the basic issues
involved in any satisfactory solution of the problem.

The infidels under discussion are unbaptized persons who have reached the age
of reason and who die in their infidelity before the Christian revelation
has been sufficiently proposed to them. A preferable term might be afidelity,
since infidelity implies a culpable refusal to believe and corresponds to what
patristic tradition called perfidy or positive, and not merely negative, *unbelief.

As a context for examining the problem, a number of propositions should be
assumed either as defined by the Church or as commonly held in theology. Thus,
God sincerely wills the salvation of all men; the act and habit or virtue of
supernatural faith (elevated by grace) are necessary for the salvation of adults;
the motive for such faith is the authority of God revealing and not simply natural
knowledge derived from reason alone; the object of faith, or what is believed,
indispensable for salvation is certainly Gods existence and attribute of Rewarder,
and probably belief in Christ and the Trinity; every adult can in some way acquire
sufficient knowledge of revelation to make an act of saving faith and perfect
love of God before death; and the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla saIus
outside the Church there is no salvation, is universally valid, so that mediation
of the Roman Catholic Church, which is the *Mystical Body of Christ, is needed
for the salvation of every human being. (See EXTRA
ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS.)

Acquisition of Faith. Christ Himself told His disciples that he who
does not believe shall be condemned (Mk 16.16). St. Paul made this obligation
the basis for the Christian apostolate, asking: How then are they to call upon
him in whom they have not believed? But how are they to believe him whom they
have not heard? And how are they to hear, if no one preaches? (Rom 10.14).
The question, however, is how can people out of contact with the Christian religion
obtain the faith when no one has preached to them. A broad range of theories
has been stimulated by a legitimate concern for the destiny of millions of these
nominal pagans.

The least satisfactory solution argues that only habitual but not actual faith
is necessary for adults to be saved. Provided a man does what he can in following
his conscience, God will infuse the virtue of faith and dispense with the duty
of also actually believing in supernaturally revealed truths. This theory seems
to evade the problem since it ignores the centuries-old conviction expressed
by St. Thomas, that, in order to reach heaven, for all those who can exercise
free will, the act of faith, as well as habitual faith, is necessary (In
3 sent 25.2.1.1).

A more plausible explanation was given by the late Cardinal Louis Billot, who
also avoided the main difficulty by suggesting that infidels may be rational
enough on the lower plane of secular knowledge, but they are moral infants on
the higher level of religious culture. Since they are not responsible for their
actions, God will treat them as children who have not the full use of their
reason, with the prospect of going to a kind of *Limbo after death. Theologians
find it hard to reconcile Billots generous hypothesis with the repeated insistence
in Scripture and tradition on the relative ease of knowing at least something
about God and the moral law, even without special revelation. If such minimal
knowledge is easy to secure, there seem to be no valid grounds to suppose that most infidels are morally irresponsible. Of course,
exceptions are possible, but Billot wished to describe a regular occurrence.

Pinard de la Boullaye made the suggestion that with persons who have neither
direct nor indirect knowledge of the true historic faith, God may accept as
equivalent any pseudorevelation that happens to coincide with the truth. He
went beyond merely saying that a mans reason for believing can be inadequate
or only subjectively convincing, as a child in Christian surroundings might
believe only on the word of a parent or teacher. A completely false deity is
erroneously credited with having revealed what he never said. Pinards theory
has not been favorably received, mainly because it allows God to infuse the
grace of the true faith on the strength of two objective errors, intellectual
assent on the word of a legendary god and belief in the attributes of a deity
who does not exist.

A once widely held solution of the problem as to where the infidel gets his
faith began with the postulate of a primitive revelation at the very dawn of
history (see REVELATION, PRIMITIVE). Although much dimmed in
the process of transmission, this primordial speaking of God to the human family
would have been, according to this theory, sufficiently diffused and substantially
preserved throughout the world to become the groundwork of a religious faith
distinct from either Judaism or Christianity. Were one to grant that authentic
traces of primitive revelation exist, and that people believe in it on divine
and not merely human authority, these traces would offer sufficient grounds
for that supernatural faith which the Council of Trent defined as the beginning
of human salvation (Denz 1532).

Still another possibility was suggested by St. Thomas, that in urgent cases
God would reveal by internal inspiration what he has to believe, to the good
pagan who followed the dictates of conscience in doing good and avoiding evil
(De ver. 14.11). A few theologians have extended the idea to say that
every dying person is faced with a supreme moral test on which his destiny depends.
At that moment infidels receive a special revelation. There is no objection
to the theory, unless a possible exception to the ordinary course of Providence
is stated as an absolute and universal law.

Necessity of the Church. Correlative with the practical question of
how infidels obtain the faith they need for salvation is the dogmatic one of
how they can be saved at all if they die without having professed the Catholic
religion. The Churchs necessity has been solemnly defined on three occasions,
notably by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which declared, There is but
one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all (nullus
omnino) is saved (Denz 802). Elaborated by generations of theologians,
the doctrine was authoritatively clarified by the Holy Office in a letter to
Archbishop Cushing of Boston in 1949, in connection with the Boston Heresy
Case (Bousc-OConnor 3:525.-530).

The issue resolved was whether God denies the grace of conversion to the Catholic
Church to a person who is perfectly faithful to the divine will. It was contended
that because God has promised to bestow that gift on all men of good will, He
cannot withhold it from any man, except if this man has wickedly resisted all
the graces already given to him, and would also resist this grace. By implication all infidels who die without actually professing Catholicism are lost.

Reacting to this rigorism, the Holy Office recalled the ancient tradition that
God is master of His grace and not obliged to grant the gift of the Catholic
faith to anyone, even to those who are perfectly submissive to His laws. Yet
such persons can be saved. For although the Church is indispensable in two ways,
by precept and as instrument of grace, they can satisfy both conditions without
actual Catholic membership.

A precept implies the duty of obedience only when the obligation has been adequately
proposed and sufficiently recognized. Invincible ignorance, therefore, as in
the case of negative infidels, would excuse from culpability for not professing
the Catholic faith. As long as there is good will and correspondence with the
graces received, God also accepts an implicit desire, so named because contained
in the good disposition of soul by which a person wants his will to be conformed
to the will of God (ibid. 528). Consequently, on this level he is saved
through his connection with the Church, voto (by intention) or desiderio
(by desire). See VOTUM.

Also on the second level as channel of grace everyone needs the Church, including
nominal infidels who enter eternity before entering the Catholic Church, which
God has made the repository of all graces and the channel for their communication
to the world.

In order to attain the beatific vision, in the face-to-face
possession of God in heaven, a person must have died with sanctifying grace
on his soul. This supernatural gift is always dispensed through the Church,
of which Christ the God-man is the invisible Head. In other words, whoever is
finally saved owes to the Church the divine blessings he received during life,
from the first glimmer of faith by which an infidel came to believe in revelation
to the gift of perseverance that assured his eternal destiny. All of this was
possible, however, only because he was somehow attached to the Church by his
responsiveness to the divine will. God recognizes the good will to imply a desire
of becoming a Catholic. It matters little that psychologically the infidel is
unaware of the full implications of his generosity. Objectively God sees the
implications and credits the soul accordingly.

In terms of St. Pauls analogy of the Church as the Mystical Body, this means
that the Body of Christ (not unlike human bodies) is active beyond its own physical
self. From the Spirit of Christ, which animates the Church (see SOUL OF THE CHURCH), it radiates a power that sanctifies its actual
members and others besides including the most remote infidelsthrough all the
channels of grace (notably through the sacrifice of the Mass).

See also SALVATION, NECESSITY OF THE CHURCH FOR; MEDIATION; MEDIATION
OF THE CHURCH; NECESSITY OF MEANS; NECESSITY OF PRECEPT.